


for nothing, for everything

by aliatori



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Canon Compliant, Heavy Angst, I don't know what else to tag this with, I'm Sorry, M/M, except angst, like seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 00:42:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13224612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliatori/pseuds/aliatori
Summary: Ignis Scientia had always been a brilliant man, but there were three particular things he did not know.





	for nothing, for everything

**Author's Note:**

  * For [naksworth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/naksworth/gifts).



> Written for [naksworth,](http://archiveofourown.org/users/naksworth) whose encouragement is a priceless gift. Special thanks as always to [Xylianna](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Xylianna) for beta-ing this angsty mess into something coherent.
> 
>  **WARNING** : Episode Ignis spoilers below.

Ignis Scientia had always been a brilliant man, but there were three particular things he did not know.

The first: Ignis was unsure how much longer he would remember Noct’s face.

An inconvenient fact about going blind, Ignis realized, was that colours and images and faces faded away, one by one, slipping between his synapses like sand through loose fingers. He’d glimpse a memory of the shape of his mother’s curls, recall the exact hue of his favourite shade of purple, relive the experience of reading words inked on a page instead of bumps under his fingertips. But more and more often, he found a blank swathe of darkness when he tried to bring a specific concept to mind, the details of the world one more thing he’d sacrificed along the way.

Noct, though, he had kept alive in his mind by sheer force of will. Ignis forced himself to review the most crucial images in a nightly ritual, a ritual that pained him as much as it sustained him. If he were in a particularly masochistic mood, he’d play one of the many videos Prompto had filmed during happier days. Ignis would scroll his finger along the edge of his phone for the precise number of seconds it took to get to the point where Noct spoke.

And then, one by one, he conducted an audit of those most precious memories. Their first meeting, that look of shyness in Noct’s wide, liquid eyes that melted to a smile when Ignis had offered his hand. The first time he saw Noct after his childhood injury, skin paler than normal and black hair stark against the ivory sheets of the bed, but _alive_. The blue and white stripes of Noct’s school uniform tie, the ones Ignis so often picked up from the strangest places in the apartment and had to remind Noct so often to wear; later, the memory of that same tie coming undone in Ignis’s fingertips, of the pale ‘v’ of Noctis’s skin that showed when his shirt collar peeled back.

Some nights he’d stop there, unable to face the memories that came next, willing to risk forgetting to spare himself the guillotine of heartbreak. But most nights, he’d continue.

Ignis never wanted to lose any part of their first kiss. After so much struggling against the impropriety and complications that falling in love with his charge had caused, Ignis surrendered. He’d placed his hand on Noct’s shoulder, clutched at the stiff black fabric of Noct’s school jacket, hesitant. Noct looked up through those long lashes he had no right to, pinning Ignis with that midnight blue gaze that he’d tried to avoid for so long. The need, the desire, the confusion, the nervousness in those eyes… Ignis focused on that look over and over again, searing it into his mind despite the misery it caused him. And the pale coral pink of Noct’s lips as he turned his face up towards Ignis, asking without words. And the way Ignis’s hand cupped Noct’s face just so, cradling it as he brought his lips to Noct’s and ruined himself forever.

Their first time… there was so much wrapped up in that memory that Ignis had to be selective in his choices. He relished a few mundane details: lime green and sky blue balloons scattered around Noct’s apartment from the earlier party, a gold and glittery streamer drooping from one of the walls, the vibrant red pop of strawberries on fluffy white cake frosting. A dab of that same frosting lingering at the corner of Noct’s mouth, cream against pink, and the surprised flick of Noct’s eyebrows when Ignis bent down and licked it off.

The colour of Noct’s sheets spread across his too-big bed, the same twilight blue of his eyes. Ignis had bought the sheets and the choice had been very deliberate. The cramped shyness of Noct’s body as he took off his clothes, that same modesty melting as Ignis helped ease Noct’s shirt over his head and ran his hands down Noct’s back. The most indulgent part of this memory he needed to keep - Noct’s body beneath him in the darkness, as vulnerable and bare as the exposed look in his eyes. The paleness of Noct’s skin against the sheets, the lines of emerging muscles as Ignis explored him inch by inch, asking permission with each new place he claimed. The flush of Noct’s neck and cheeks when it was his turn to surrender, the way Noct’s sweat-damp hair clung to his face, the budding purple stains along Noct’s throat where Ignis had momentarily lost control.

And of course, the sight of Noct’s whole body arching under Ignis with all his newfound strength, the bright streaks of pain from Noct’s nails raking lines down Ignis’s back. Most unforgettable of all, the look on Noct’s face when he cried out Ignis’s name, bliss blurring his features in a way that damned Ignis over and over again. He had never tired of seeing it when he could see, and he never tired of trying to preserve it once he couldn’t. 

The ritual always ended on the last time Ignis had ever seen Noct. His body facedown on the grey stone of the altar, Altissia’s waters churning behind him from Gods and imperial bullets alike. Ignis’s own hand stretched out towards Noct as the Ring of the Lucii claimed his sight, burning it away from the edges in with its fierce and terrible magic. Ignis wished desperately that he had some other last memory of Noct, but that was the one he lived with, so that’s the one he tried to keep.

Which brought Ignis to the second thing he did not know: he had no idea how he would react to being in Noct’s presence again after all this time spent in his absence.

By and large, Ignis had been content to let the decade pass him by without demarcation. After all, what were decades without the only thing that mattered?

He’d tried, at least. Hadn’t he always? Stoic, calm, reliable Ignis. No one bothered to ask how he felt. He’d lost his sight. He’d lost his king. He’d lost his love. Sometimes he found himself glad that he couldn’t see, because seeing would mean pity, and pity would lead to thinking, and thinking would lead to…

Well. It would lead to Noct. It always did.

He’d done such a good job at not thinking about Noct except in his own carefully prescribed terms. But here he was, on the eve of Noct’s return, thinking. The most deadly of Ignis’s past times.

How did people live with the knowledge that they’d lose everything that mattered?

Ignis arrived at the hard fought conclusion that they didn’t. Not truly. They just pretended to fill the gaps that knowledge left in their soul, moved on as best they could while bearing the weight that nothing would ever be the same again.

When he probed at his emotions, he found anger simmering at the top. He’d been fighting that anger since Noct had disappeared into the crystal - it had started with a clenched fist and grown into something more, a subtle rage that had wormed its way straight through to his heart. But underneath the anger, wedged in the same place it had always been since the moment Ignis knew how deep his feelings ran for Noct, was love. He loved Noct so fiercely that it abated the anger, made it superficial, a tool Ignis had used as surely as his cane to navigate his feelings.

He loved Noct so Gods damned much. He would never stop.

Which lead into the third, and perhaps the most alarming thing that Ignis Scientia did not know: after this decade-long trial run, Ignis doubted he could ever learn to live in a world without Noct.

* * *

Ignis imagined himself to be a composed, competent man. It had been trained and bred into him from such a young age that even under these most trying of circumstances, he thought he could maintain some semblance of functionalism. 

But, _Gods_ , when he’d heard Noct’s voice again, it took all of his control not to disintegrate into subatomic particles. To not let himself dissolve into the pieces he’d been trying to hold together for all these years.

He thought Noct’s own feelings would be diminished, to be honest. Ignis had no idea what being in an otherworldly dimension for ten years preparing to banish the star’s darkness would be like, but he had to assume it would involve forgetting about more earthly concerns such as himself.

He was wrong. Noct hadn’t forgotten.

“Ignis…” Noct said, voice low. They weren’t alone. Gladio and Prompto stood beside them, their presence pressing on the edges of Ignis’s perception as always. He longed to touch Noct’s face, to map the changes that their decade apart had wrought, but as always his propriety stopped him. Too much. Too soon. Too fast.

Even though it wasn’t. Not by a long shot.

It had been like old times in Hammerhead. A camp, Ignis cooking a meal with the hard earned skills he’d learned while blind, the banter. He loved and hated it at the same time. What was the point of pretending when really, there was no point? He’d known since Altissia what the end result would be. Had known, had let the others pretend that there was some kind of hope, and for what? For this?

For nothing. For everything.

Every time Noct spoke, he yearned. He wanted. He longed with a fierceness that couldn’t be put into words. Every syllable was an ache, every breath a misery.

Why was life so _fucking_ unfair? Why did he have to lose Noct to save the world?

Why hadn’t he tried harder, back then? Why hadn’t he found a way to save him?

No. This was a path he’d been down a thousand times. Every time he indulged himself in it, it only led to more heartbreak. Enjoy the moments you were given, Ignis reminded himself.

Because after this, there wouldn’t be any more. Noct would be well and truly gone. Ignis had been dreading that fact for ten years, and yet here it was, walking around the campsite in kingly raiment.

When Noct’s hands found him in the tent, Ignis had no doubt they were his. He knew those fingers, knew the paths they traced over his chest and hips, known the curvature of the lips that Noct pressed against his skin in the dark.

 _Gods, Astrals_ , he wish he could un-know it all. Could forget. Could consign the knowledge to some pit never to be seen again and to be free of it forever.

But he couldn’t. Not really. Not when Noct drew Ignis’s body towards him, towards the familiar urgent rocking of hips and _fuck_ , there it was, that rhythm Ignis had been missing for a decade, that feeling he longed to give himself to over and over again but he couldn’t, because who could give themselves to a lover that wasn’t there? To a king that had a destiny?

When Noct’s thighs began to shake, he took Ignis’s hand and pressed it against his face. To let Ignis feel. To let him ‘see’ what the moment that Ignis has been addicted to since the first time felt like, that moment of release and trust and love and belonging. Ignis felt it under his fingertips and let it dismantle him in the most vicious way.

After, when Noct’s fingertips had traced over the scars on Ignis’s face, he stopped, gasped, bit his tongue to keep from saying anything.

“Ignis?” his king asked, quiet and uncertain. What right did Noct have to touch him that way?

He had every right. He always had. Ignis had been lost since the early days when he’d taken Noct’s hand in his and _promised_ to take care of Noct the best he knew how.

“Yes?” Ignis asked.

“How are you?”

What kind of question was that? Noct knew, he had to know. But what kind of response was _I’m lost without you_ or _please don’t leave me_ or _I’ve known since Altissia, you asshole, and I’ve never stopped loving you._

“Managing. As best I can,” Ignis replied.

“Which means… you’re not. Not really,” Noct said, his thumb still rubbing against the scars covering his left eye.

“Astute as always, Your Highness,” Ignis said. He allowed himself a bitter half-smile.

“I didn’t… I didn’t know that you knew. You never said,” Noct breathed, his other hand finding Ignis’s bare hip and pulling it towards him in the darkness.

Why was it always dark? Darker than being blind?

“Why would I say it aloud, Noct? It would only reinforce the pain for both of us,” Ignis replied.

“Ignis…”

And now it was Noct’s turn to trace the lines of Ignis’s face in the dead of night, feel out the edges of his scars like he didn’t already know they were there. Ignis could almost feel the words his King was about to say. He willed Noct not to say them, knowing he would be destroyed under the weight of the words.

“Noct,” Ignis said. Curt. Short. So much unsaid.

“I love you,” Noctis whispered, his thumb caressing Ignis’s cheek, and Ignis wondered if he’d ever truly live again.

“I love you, too,” Ignis replied, the words as sure and true and damning as the first time he’d said them all those years ago.

For how quickly a decade had passed, Ignis was determined to make whatever days he had with Noct last.

They talked. They prepared. They caught up. They did the things they would have done ten years ago. And as much as Ignis loved to throw his daggers or polearm at daemons… it was all superficial. Fake. A facade over the truth they all faced.

Noct had left, and come back, and would leave again. _Forever._

He allowed himself the same indiscretions of his youth. When he handed Noct a plate of food, he let a hand linger over his king’s, savouring their touch for as long as possible. When they took down a particularly stubborn daemon, Ignis pretended to only care as much as the others, exchanging fistbumps and pats on the back like each gesture wasn’t another step towards the abyss for him.

The permanence of the reality that faced Ignis made him feel weak. Dizzy. Unworthy, to be honest, unworthy of being the right hand of the king. He had known, known more than Gladio and Prompto, and shouldn’t that count for something?

It did and it didn’t.

It was in a shitty caravan that Noct allowed Ignis the pleasure of mapping out his face in earnest. His sensitive fingertips analyzed all the changes that age had wrought upon his king, from the creased skin to the stunted beard to the pursed lips, drawn down into serious points.

“Noct…” Ignis began, smiling to himself, his clouded eyes that held only the barest splash of colour looking into nothing but seeing everything.

“I can’t stand it when you say my name like that,” Noct said, shifting under Ignis’s grasp. “It feels like… well, it’s so heavy. And sad.”

“My apologies,” Ignis said quickly, withdrawing his hand from Noctis’s face.

“No, no,” Noctis said, grabbing Ignis’s hand and placing it back where it had been, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if there’s anything I can say, Iggy. It’s selfish of me to even allow…” He paused for a moment, and Ignis felt a rush of air that meant Noct was waving a hand around the caravan, “This. I don’t want to hurt you anymore than I have to.”

When had his brave boy become a wise man and noble king? And why would Ignis not get the chance to cherish the distinction? 

Ignis brushed his fingertips across Noct’s lips with the same infinite tenderness he’d always shown.

“I’ve never stopped hurting, dear Noctis, not since I knew the truth. So, please… permit me the indulgence of your love and your company while we still have the chance to share it.”

And he did. He did.

But they had dallied long enough. The World of Ruin needed the Chosen King to save it, and unfortunately, there was exactly one Chosen King. The world didn’t care that he was Ignis’s oldest friend and lover, or that his death would ravage Ignis’s soul the same way his body had already been ravaged. It cared about sacrifice - the blood price would be paid.

The friends shared their final campfire together before heading back home. When Noct began to speak, Ignis rested his forearms on his thighs and held his breath.

“The four of us around a campfire. How long’s it been?”

Ignis exhaled and spoke. “Hmmm.. An eternity.” A little twitch of his lips at the sarcasm.

“So… yeah…” Noct started again. “I, um…”

“Out with it,” Gladio prompted, bold and brash as always.

“I just… Dammit. The hell is this so hard?” Noct paused again. Ignis couldn’t confirm, but he’d seen Noct stare into the fire often enough before his departure that he was sure he was doing it now. “So, I… I’ve made my peace. Still, knowing this is it… and seeing you here, now, it’s… more than I can take.”

Ignis felt a stab of agony with the words, the tightness in his chest so painful that for a moment, he worried his heart might burst. He heard Noct start to cry and longed to reach out, to wipe away the tears as he had done so many times before, but Ignis stayed where he was.

“Yeah. You’re damn right it is,” Prompto agreed.

“Huh. You spit it out,” Gladio said. His voice was too thick, too harsh, and Ignis knew that Gladio was crying too.

“It’s good to hear,” Ignis said, a platitude. It wasn’t good to hear. It was, in point of fact, the exact fucking opposite of good to hear, but he was proud of Noct for saying it nevertheless. 

Ignis heard Noct stand.

“Well...What can I say? You guys are the best.”

Ignis was perversely glad that his friends were sharing a slice of the pain he felt growing under his ribcage and stealing his oxygen. And he thought, if that had been it, if those had been Noct’s last words, he would have been able to handle it.

But Noct had other plans.

When Gladio and Prompto headed back towards Hammerhead, Noct called his name. Ignis, blessed and cursed to follow his liege and love wherever he might go, followed. He would always follow… until he couldn’t.

They walked out onto the section of grassy rock overlooking the topography near Hammerhead. Ignis couldn’t quite recall the details of the scenery, his mind too full of other images he wanted to keep, but he thought he remembered the view being spectacular.

“Y’know, looking back… it wasn’t all bad,” Noct said.

“I suppose we had some fun along the way,” Ignis ventured, tentative, not sure where this conversation was leading.

“And our fair share of trouble, too… But I don’t have any regrets. Luna and you guys brought me this far, and now I’m on my own.”

 _What?_ Ignis fought against the sudden panic that clawed up his throat. He was not going to let Noct do this alone. Not this last, biggest, hardest task. Not on his own.

“No,” Ignis said, “You won’t be going alone. I’ll-”

“No, you’re right,” Noct interrupted. “I mean, I wouldn’t have made it all this way without you guys. Without you. In the end… I might not have you at my side, but I’ll always have you in my heart.”

The grief Ignis had barely kept at bay overwhelmed him, a sudden and horrible sense of loss, the reality of what was about to happen setting in. Noct placed a hand on Ignis’s shoulder and it was the only thing that kept him from vanishing into his grief.

“Thanks… Thanks for everything, Iggy.”

And Gods, there it was, the first memory he tried to keep each and every night. His prince, now a king, so shy and small and scared. That first moment of trust between them, the first link in a bond that would never be replicated.

Ignis swallowed, feeling tears prickle at his ruined eyes, and held out a gloved hand towards Noct. Noct took Ignis’s hand in both of his, recreating that moment from all those years ago, and Ignis felt his heart shatter again. Each breath he took drew broken glass into his lungs, the pain fierce and overwhelming.

“Noctis,” Ignis choked out, tears streaming down his face.

Noct let go of Ignis’s hand and closed the distance between them. He was so close that Ignis could feel his body heat and hear his laboured breathing. In another sweet, aching gesture from their youth, Noct took Ignis’ glasses off and hung them on the vest of his Kingsglaive uniform.

When Noct took Ignis’s face in his hand and brushed his tears away, Ignis knew he would never be the same. And when he felt Noct’s lips on his, tender, soft, the pressure so slight in contrast to the feelings swirling in him… the wound was fatal. When his lover drew away, Ignis tried to speak.

“I…” Ignis started, felt the tears swallow the rest of his words, tried again, “I’ll be by your side again, someday. I swear it.”

Noct took a deep breath and kissed Ignis again, deeper this time, his hands curled against the back of Ignis’s neck.

“I’ll be waiting.”

* * *

Reclaiming the throne of Insomnia and restoring light to the world went, for a change, exactly as predicted. Even in his blindness, Ignis saw dawn break across the world again, and he wept hard, bitter tears at the sight.

Ignis did not go to Noct’s funeral. In spite of the fact he wouldn’t actually see the body, he had no wish to murder the last memories of his love along with the man himself. Ignis could think of nothing more discomfiting than airing his unprocessed grief in front of people who would, quite frankly, never understand the magnitude of his pain.

He allowed himself to stray, casting himself adrift in the world and following the winds wherever they led him. To see Gladio or Prompto or… well, anyone, really, was more than he could bear. Ignis helped in small ways across Lucis as the world rebuilt, its changing shape both inexorable and new. The old Ignis would have berated himself for not doing his duty, for not playing a bigger part in containing the chaos that dawn had brought. But the new Ignis, the one who was navigating his way through life without the man he loved more than anything… he couldn’t bring himself to care.

His broken heart began to repair, slowly, a process accomplished in miniscule degrees. Ignis would wake in the morning and find his face free of tears. Or he’d pass a fishing pier and not feel like something had gone rotten in his gut. He started to make it past the first memories in his nightly ritual, able to examine the more intense memories of Noct without being reduced to sorrow and sobbing. 

It took him a year before he ventured back to Insomnia. A memorial had been unveiled for Noct, so the news said, and Ignis found he wanted to visit it.

Insomnia stood too close to all the painful places in his soul, and going back was like a trauma victim returning to the scene of the crime. But it hurt less than Ignis thought it would, and he considered that a good sign.

He used his cane to navigate the city streets, their paths unfamiliar to him after being rebuilt. He clutched a small, paper-wrapped package in his other hand, his progress slow but sure.

Eventually, he reached the spot where the statue had been unveiled. Ignis was grateful that he couldn’t hear or feel many people around him. Visiting the city and the memorial pushed against boundaries Ignis hadn’t tested in quite some time.

He tapped his way to the front of the sculpture. After a pause, he took off his gloves and began to explore it with his fingers. He was surprised and a… a little bit delighted, even… to find they had made the statue life-like in nature. Ignis had expected some grandiose, over the top affair to celebrate the Chosen King, but instead he found… Noct.

Certainly the material beneath his hands was metal instead of flesh, and the artist had taken some artistic license with the clothing… but it was Noctis, all the same.

He inhaled, exhaled, counted to 20 and back again in his head to work through the tears.

When he felt more steady, he rested his cane against his leg and unwrapped the package he carried with him. Inside rested a single Memory Lane Pastry. Ignis had made a batch a couple nights ago, but had only kept this single one.

Ignis bent down and placed the dessert at the base of the memorial. He stood and took his lower lip in his teeth, considering.

“Noctis…” he said, voice barely above a whisper, “Wherever you are, I hope you’re at peace. I hope the weight of your burdens has been lifted.”

Ah, drat. Tears. Ignis thought he did well, though, all things considered.

“And I hope you intend to keep your promise. To be waiting.”

* * *

Ignis Scientia was a brilliant man, and there were three things he knew for certain.

The first was that he would never, _ever_ forget the face of Noctis Lucis Caelum for the all the rest of his days.

The second was that Noct’s absence had changed him as surely as his presence had. He still missed him, missed him as much as it was possible for one human to miss another, but Ignis was healing. And he was stronger for it.

The third, and possibly most reassuring of all, was that though Ignis still doubted he could ever learn to live in a world without Noct… he was going to try.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading until the end if you made it through this jumble of heartache. IgNoct isn't my number one ship but I admire it all the same - hopefully I did some small amount of justice to it.
> 
> Comments and kudos are, as always, greatly appreciated. Thank you again! [And feel free to come yell at me on Tumblr.](http://aliatori.tumblr.com/)


End file.
